Comics Reviews...From the PAST!

Labor Day or whatever we just celebrated kind of threw me off. Plus, Verizon totally [edit] me over on installing my high-speed interwebs connection, so I still lack the ability to post from home. Because I still have dial-up. Because I have not advanced technologically since 1996, apparently (because, before that I had a 14.4 k modem, so I've moved up). Anyway:


The only DC book I read this week was, apparently, The Spirit #17, a book that continues its swift decent to be a strong competitor for "Worst Book I Read Out of Habit". Much like the other competitors (Game Keeper, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimates 3... actually there's a lot of competition here) it's a book that I used to like, but the bailing of A-List (or at least competent) teams or individuals has absolutely destroyed it. Here, Darwyn Cooke made a terrific, enjoyable, all-ages package that has then been defamed by otherwise competent creators. This issue has Spirit taking a sea cruise and ripping off a plot from "Murder, She Wrote". The art, which had been by Mike Ploog and Paul Smith on previous issues, is by Aluir Amancio, whose cheesecake renditions seem out of place at best.


Indies also had a weak showing: I only picked up Gargoyles: Bad Guys #3, which I enjoyed. It's Gargoyles, so I'll spare you a review. But, it's like the show, but a comic.


Now, on to Marvel. Fun fact, a year ago, I was buying more DC than Marvel.


Amazing Spider-Man #560 continues a string of enjoyable Spidey stories. I had doubts, but really, it's the closest to a kid-friendly in continuity book either Marvel or DC has. People can complain about the violence but, come on, I read Grendel when I was far too young and I'm fine. Ish. Good stuff, really.


Captain America #38 just kind of rules. I don't know why every single comic-reading person is not buying this book. Great cover, awesome art, and the early reveal is just SO good. Brubaker is awesome at pulling off twists that are obvious and surprising all at once (see Criminal, Sleeper, et al). Plus, I am just happy Secret Invasion has not insinuated itself into his grand epic like, say, Civil War did (although, that worked out okay).

Fantastic Four #557 continues Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's very decent run on the title. Hopefully, the next storyline will be an improvement, but it is depressing that the book I was looking forward to so much has turned into something so blah. It's better than Stracynski's run (or sprint), though.

X-Factor #31 was perfectly fine. And the Arcade story is done, so that's nice.

Rounding out the week, there were two Ultimate books (an improvement over past months that saw four to five Ultimate books ON THE SAME DAY), Fantastic Four and X-Men, and both were bad for their own, unique reasons. UFF #54 had some terrible Liefeld-meets-Turner art by Tyler Kirkham. Mike Carey's script is fine, though, if a little padded out to set up the "big reveal" (which was lame).

Then, there was Ultimate X-Men #94, which, just, baaah! I'm not going to defend Robert Kirkman here; his run was somewhere between awful and unreadable. He deliberately went against the established Ultimate continuity (how hard is it to pay attention to all of 50 issues of continuity, really). He wrote a spasmodic, borderline-masturbatory version of '90s excess comics. But, I swear, Aron Collete is worse. Because he writes his book like it IS a '90s X-Men book. Men of Mystery! Random violence! Characters spouting non-sense to build mystique! (Note: I don't care who really Sasquatch is, no matter how much you want me to). So, yeah, this is just a bad as Kirkman's run, but different bad.

And that's the week. I realize now that, if I didn't read bad books, I'd read no books at all. Which is depressing.